Home of the Rabbit that Bites People's Heads Off and Eddie Izzard's Evil Giraffe

Friday, May 12, 2006

"How Was I Supposed To Know There Was Some Guy Named Joe Vigilante?"

Not two weeks ago, I blogged about a visit to a college campus for a speech by Ann Coulter that featured, among other things, the conservative pundit attempting to incite people to violence against protesters. Since the account came from a college student, and not from any formal news source, I wondered how authentic it really was.

Why hasn't the former spokesman for the Taliban matriculating at Yale been beaten even more senseless than he already is? According to Hollywood, this nation is a cauldron of ethnic hatreds positively brimming with violent skinheads. Where are the skinheads when you need them? What does a girl have to do to get an angry, club- and torch-wielding mob on its feet?

This is not some isolated blogger, or some nut job wanking off to Holocaust fantasies on the Stormfront message boards. This is a woman who is treated with respect among the ranks of conservative punditry. She is paid good amounts of money for weekly columns, books, and appearances on cable talk shows.

And she is talking, at least half-seriously, about summoning racist thugs for the purpose of doling out violence against those who displease her.

This is the deciding point. As Dave Neiwert points out, Ann "has a predilection for seeing her 'outrageous' remarks become standard right-wing talking points." Even her most toxic statements ("ragheads," anyone?) have a tendency to be downplayed by her fellow talking heads. If the conservative intelligensia does not wise up and kick Ann out on her bony ass, then they effectively condone the use of politically-motivated vigilante violence.